57
“That’s everything I know,” mumbled Reich’s old lady, Deanna.
She’d been uptight and snappy when my men first brought her in from the hotel in Deadwood where she’d been holed up waiting for Reich and Nina. When she stepped into the clubroom, her eyes had followed the prospects who’d been scrubbing the floor with bleach and mopping it over with ammonia. She’d slowed down, but she’d kept moving. She knew. I’d bet she’d been prepared for years now.
After sitting in a hard wooden chair in my office with me, Catch, and Drac as we went over every detail of Reich’s financials with her, she’d relented, bit by sour bit. Money stashed in dummy corporations, in her kitchen pantry in boxes where cookies, macaroni, and cereal ought to be. In winter comforter covers packed in her closets. In hollowed out speakers, stereo components, DVD players, fake books in her living room. In taped up packets in her attic walls, in an old rusted hot water heater, a broken vacuum cleaner in her basement
Catch got off his phone. “They’re here.”
I glanced at the bank of security monitors to my left. Each national officer of the Flames of Hell was on my property. President, Treasurer, Secretary, Sergeant at Arms. Their eyes flicked over the large room. Beers were put in their hands.
“They’re here?” Deanna said, her voice thin.
“They came to see what your old man’s been up to. It’s time for them to face facts.” I slanted my head at her. “We’re done. You spend some time with your sister. Two of my men will be taking you home to Ohio and getting the cash from your house. I’ll leave you with this amount.” I slid a piece of paper towards her. Her eyebrows lifted. Was she pleased or disappointed?
“How’s that look to you?”
She squirmed in her chair. “That’s, uh, very fair.”
“Fair? Pretty fucking generous is what that is. What do you say?” said Drac, his tone as sharp as his fanged teeth now showing.
A frown passed over her already pinched face. “Thank you.”
“Yeah, that’s more like it. Now move.” Drac motioned for her to get up quickly.
“Get her out of here from the back,” I said.
Catch led Deanna by the arm out of my office, and handed her off to another one of my men for safekeeping and transport to Catch’s house, where Nina waited for her.
I headed into the meeting room, Catch and Drac at my sides. Four hardened faces looked up at me. They were on my turf now. The elite. The elders. The select elect. The higher ups of the Flames of Hell.
My captive audience.
“Welcome.”
“What do you got?” Taz, my National President said. “This is serious shit, man, these allegations. You fucking killed him? Just mowed him down?”
“I stopped him from killing someone in my own house. And first of all, due to his obsession with his sister-in-law, he ended up killing the president of a friendly MC right next door to us. Set off a bomb on their property. That kind of crazy is not good for business or our reputation. But at the center of it all is this—”
I raised my chin at Den, and he went at his keyboard. Up on the television monitor streamed the evidence of Reich’s great subterfuge. Accounting spreadsheets tallying up all his expenses, his profits. And what profits they were. At the end of the day, over seven figures.
Taz drummed a hand on the oak table, his concentration focused on the screen. Watts, the Treasurer was on the edge of his seat, his eyes jogging over each set of figures presented, his lips moving. Lenox, the Sergeant at Arms shook his head, gripping his beer bottle tighter, rapping it against the table in a steady rhythm.
“The documents go back to over twelve years ago,” I said.
“How did you break this?” asked Watts, his attention fixed back on the figures marching down the screen.
“I’ve been keeping my eye on him since our big general convention in Atlanta, about ten years ago, back when the Mexicans started blockading and the Demon Seeds from the west were playing hardball. He didn’t seem too uptight about cash flow like the rest of us were. He’d put on a good show of brainstorming colorful ideas, but none of them amounted to anything, he’d dropped every single ball. I smelled distraction. Set a course for getting hold of the evidence, and I got it.
“In front of my whole club yesterday, he admitted it, declared it was all his. He was actually annoyed with me for finding out and threatening to put a stop to it. But what Reich never got about me is that I don’t threaten. I make shit happen. The question is, what are you all going to do about it?”
They stared at me, chewing on all my evidence like dogs with a single thick bone between them.
“I’m putting seventy-five per cent of these assets in National’s coffers,” I said.
Watts let out a gust of air, pressing his back into his chair. “Can’t beat that.”
“Twelve years is a damn long time,” I said. “All those years, none of you—and you’ve all been in office that long, re-elected over and over again—never noticed a thing? It was just business as usual? Trust Reich with the reigns, with making decisions. Trust him with all our worldly goods and possessions.”
Watts leaned his weight forward on the table, a ringed hand brushing over his long mustache. “He was always flush. Even when times were shit. I’d seen his wife driving around in a new car, taking trips. He always had a quick explanation for everything. Never a straight answer though, always a different story.”
My pulse picked up at the row of stiff faces around me.
“How could you not know?” I asked Taz. “Did you look the other way? Or were you on the take too? Temptation just too great. Did you get a cut of the slaves and the snuff films?” I gestured at the screen. I fed the thick anxiety and dread at all the possible outcomes that hovered over our table like the heavy odor of frying grease. I was the one doing the frying.
“I looked for you on here,” I continued. “Didn’t find you though, but I did find a recurring monthly fee. And plenty of miscellaneous expenses. Maybe you were one of those, huh, Taz? That vacation to Cancun last year? Pretty fancy. But you didn’t take your old lady or your kids or one of your local bitches. No. Maybe you had a girl chained to your side the whole time specially trained just for you?”
All eyes were on Taz.
Taz rolled his shoulders, twisting his neck, his mouth opened.
“Don’t you fucking lie to me. This is selling out,” I said. “A Flame does not sell out his brothers, does not undercut his brothers. Used to be a Flame was the finest there was. He stood for something. This? Crawling for pennies. It may be a mighty pile of pennies, but your allegiance, your loyalty went from the Flames of Hell to pennies? You’ve trashed what we stand for. Yeah, back in the day, that trade was good, easy money, but it ain’t us no more.”
“Listen, I—”
My fist slammed on the great wooden table. “What is this, huh? Right here, right now? You tell us.”
Taz glared at me. “Flames of Hell.”
“Yes. Who’s the national president?”
Taz’s eyes narrowed at me. “I am.”
“Yes, you are. Shouldn’t you have noticed what your own vice president was up to? You and Reich have been buds for years. Came up together. A well-oiled machine ruling the roost the past decade and a half.”
“Ah shit, man,” Lenox groaned.
Taz jolted in his chair. “You accusing me of—”
“Reich was always a resourceful thinker, an instigator. He produced all this fine tailor-made product by himself and maintained this network of contacts and delivery. Generated big bucks. He had Led as his gopher, yeah, but he had to have used your Ohio money laundering machine to help with the extra. I imagine there was always lots of cream left on the sides of that big milkshake glass.”
His back rigid, Taz planted his hands on the table. “Who the fuck do you think—”
I untucked my knife and thrust it into Taz’s left hand. The blade stuck there, pinning his hand to the table. He howled like a wild bear caught in a trap, his body shuddering and twisting.
Flint shot up from his chair. “What the fuck, man?”
“Finger!” Lenox yelled.
I pointed at the screen. “Look.”
“What is that?” Flint asked.
“Every investment that Reich made is signed over to either his old lady or Taz,” Watts said, reading the projected documents on the screen. “Shit. Shit.”
The men stared at Taz and looked away again. Taz only squirmed in his chair, blood streaming over his hand, on my table.
“Is that loyalty to your club? Is that the absolute heat of the Flame?” I asked.
Heads shook, hands running down grim faces. Flint kicked at his chair, grabbed it, and threw himself back in it.
“You need to sign this, Taz.” I shoved a document my lawyer had drawn up this morning. “Signs over all your claims to this money to several of our corporations. Here’s a pen.”
“Do it!” Watts yelled at him.
Betrayal is a vile thing among brothers.
Taz’s hands quaked as he signed the papers. Good thing he was a righty and not a lefty. Would’ve been messy.
“I’ll tell you what this is—unforgivable.” I sat back down in my chair. “It’s not just the money. I’ve been here on my patch of ground for years and years, defending it tooth and nail from all manner of jerk off—corporate, law enforcement, mob, Mexican, Latin American, other clubs. I’ve got the One-Eyed Jacks of the Dakotas and Colorado playing friendly ball, and further west of us, the Demon Seeds have finally cooled their shit.
“But I’ve got the Broken Blades next door playing chicken with us, and now, they’re aligning themselves with the Smoking Guns after I brought down their partnership with a crime organization from Denver. Do you think that’s a coincidence? There was a matchmaker for that union: Reich. Our National VP sicced our enemy on me, his brother, giving that enemy a free fucking pass on a vital web of business within our organization. Took us long, hard years to get our shit tight, and we did it. That’s one of the reasons the Flames are the envy of so many. We are tight. And Reich didn’t just talk up any Gun to start a rupture, no. He brought Scrib in.”
“Aw, fuck no,” muttered Flint.
“I’m taking this personally, and you should too. Who knows how long those two had been meeting up? Did Reich think I would let that happen? Do you?”
“No, man. No way,” said Lenox.
“Did he think that I would take that sitting down? Let it roll over me?” I asked.
“This ain’t right,” said Flint, shifting in his seat.
I eyed each and every one of them. “You know what you get with me. I don’t make pretty noises to get your attention, that’s Reich’s way. That was the man ruling alongside this President.”
Taz gaped at me.
I gestured at Catch. He came forward, his arms full. In the center of the table he made a pile of a Sig Sauer P320, a Ruger LC9, a Springfield XD, a Glock.
I liked variety on my menu.
“It’s up to you now, the last remaining national officers of the Flames of Hell.” I rubbed my hands together slowly. “Prove your loyalty to the Flame. To each other. I found the evidence, and I took care of Reich just as he was pulling his gun on us. He left debris behind him, though, and it needs to be cleaned up—it reeks. This club cannot be ruled by greedy lying bastards who will sell it out to line their own pockets. We’ve taken blood oaths to never allow that to happen. Our brotherhood comes first. I’m not going to be Reich’s whore or Taz’s whore. Are you?”
The men shook their heads, their faces long, eyes cold and weary.
“There are rules in place. Rules that had been set for a reason by those who came before us, rules that deserve our respect. These rules need to be followed, not broken or bent by any member on a kick, ‘cause then we got bedlam. And that is not Flames of Hell. We are tight. We are clean in what we do and how we do it. By necessity, right, Taz? Adhering to that necessity is what keeps us whole and secure. That security has been put at risk because of Reich and Taz’s greed. ”
A rush of adrenaline washed through me. It was time for these fucks to prove their loyalty. Reich had dug a breach too wide and deep to be ignored or brushed over and had taken Taz with him.
Watts grabbed the handle of the Sig and stood up, his chair scraping along the floor, his right eye twitching as it did when he got anxious. “I’m ready.”
“Watts, please. Not like this...”
“You should’ve thought of that while you were counting your dough,” said Watts.
Lenox wrapped a hand around the Kimber, his chin raised, glaring at Taz. Flint leaned over and grabbed the Ruger. My pulse drummed in every vein, making my heart beat loudly, evenly. The clarity washed over me like cool rain on a sticky summer day.
I unstuck my knife from Taz’s hand, and he groaned loudly, his side slumping against the table. Catch moved forward and led Taz outside the room.
I loved a ritual, especially one of my own creation. Rites were necessary, making the ordinary special and un-ordinary. Furthermore, a ritual invoked a visceral understanding. And that emotional connection in turn served the continuity of who we were, which was crucial to our survival.
Outside, past the metal sheds, past hulks of rusted cars and bikes Flames had embedded in the earth to leave their mark on the property, in the clearing of the brush, we stopped.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” muttered Taz.
“It never is.” I flicked a hand at his colors.
Taz removed his cut and handed it to me. I picked at the seams of the president’s patch on the worn leather with my knife, ripping it off, handing it all to Catch.
The sweat beaded on Taz’s forehead in the late afternoon sun, his grayed hair lifting in the hot breeze. I shoved him back, and he stumbled.
I raised my gun, Watts and Lenox and Flint aiming theirs.
Boom. Crack. Crack. Clip.
Taz flew back, collapsing to the ground.
Lenox lit a cigarette, his hand shaking. Watts muttered to himself. Motionless, Flint stared off into the distance. I said nothing. After a moment they turned back to me. The somberness was heavy in their eyes, because they knew and they understood. I had just leveled the playing field, and we were all standing on it together, fully present, passionate in our commitment, and potent in that unity. Informed and fueled in our new reality.
I’d always been steeped in that fuel, and was just as flammable.
After a quick glass of whiskey, Lenox, Flint, and Watts took off. I remained outside in the field. The wind had picked up and made Taz’s shirt flutter on his still body on the flat ground. A heap of spent flesh in the dirt.
Four prospects huddled over him. One looked up at me, the others waiting behind him. I nodded, and they raised Taz’s bullet-riddled corpse.
My pulse thudded in my neck. The Broken Blades would get what was coming to them. And so would Scrib.
The heat of the sun’s glare burnished the dry brown brush with a coppery gold. I raised my face toward the sky, my skin warming. That huge open blue sky. Not one cloud visible today.
No, not today.